Gimme Power iPhone & iPod Chargers Extend A Hand To Charity

GIMME POWER has an un-wired past: originally conceived a remote control holder for the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point, California its new incarnation as a charging station for iPhones and iPods is the brainchild of Ana Piscuskas, daughter of York Street Studio principals, Linda Zelenko and Stephen Piscuskas. Ana recognized the hand's potential as a wired unit and her follow through brought the unit to life.




"Gimme Power" iPhone Charger


The sculpted ceramic hands hold, charge, and sync your iPhone® or iPod® while plugged into your computer. Dimensions: 5.25"W x 3"D x 7.75"T. USA.


Available in all white for $180.00 at Neiman Marcus


Or in a silver version (aluminum over ceramic) for $250 from York Street

The History of Gimme Power

Every year GIMME POWER will extend a helping hand to a designated charitable organization. In 2010 a percentage of the net sales from GIMME POWER will go to the McCarton Foundation.

enTourage eDGe. The First Combo E-reader Netbook Hits The Market.

Okay all you gadget-loving early adopters, the latest must-have tech gadget is finally taking pre-orders and is said to be shipping this week.

The enTourage eDGe is a new compact, portable, digital combination e-reader, notebook, mp3 and video player/recorder that lets you do all that the Kindle and iPad do, and then some.



Available in 5 colors, the device, with a horrible typographic treatment of the name*, is priced at $499.00 is taking pre-orders now and expected to start shipping this week.
*that capitalized DG in the word edge stands for Digital Generation.



The enTourage eDGe™ is the world’s first dualbook, combining the functions of an e-reader (complete with their online e-book store) , netbook, notepad, and audio/video recorder and player in one. It’s a comprehensive device that lets you read e-books, surf the Internet, take digital notes, send emails and instant messages, watch movies and listen to music anywhere, at any time.



Get books wirelessly, move files onto your enTourage eDGe™ using an SD card or a USB flash drive. Use the mini-USB port to move files back and forth from a Windows, Mac, or Linux-based PC. And with a netbook built in, you can forget the limitations of other e-readers, the enTourage eDGe™ does it all.

Netbook Functionality


The enTourage eDGe™ color touchscreen is a whole netbook, ready to play movies or MP3s, organize your books, notes, and pictures, or let you instant message your friends.

The screen is 1024 x 600 pixels, or 10.1 inches measured diagonally. You can view images from the e-book you're reading on the color display.

You can open a virtual keyboard and type instant messages or emails. The netbook includes an audio recorder to capture lectures for later playback or sharing.

It also has a video camera to record still images or movies as MP4s or 3GP files. You can plug in headphones or a microphone or use the built in speaker and recorder.



It has web browsing with built in WiFi®, audio/video record and playback, an email function and contacts list, a calculator, an alarm clock, and a library function to manage your books and files. The enTourage eDGe™ uses the Google® Android® OS, so you can add other applications you need (like Microsoft Office).




The netbook can be used in portrait or landscape mode, but you can also flip everything around 180 degrees. When you do that, the e-reader, where you keep your journals or take notes on books, will be on the right side, and the netbook will be on the left.



The enTourage eDGe™ only weighs about three pounds but can hold thousands of e-books in its built-in 3GB of usable memory. You can use an SD card or a USB flash drive to add to the storage, or move files to and from your MP3 player, your phone, your PC, even your camera.

Designed to let you go all day without recharging the battery, the lithium ion battery can last up to 16 hours of reading without recharging (note: that's 16 hours of reading. If you're using the LCD screen, the battery lasts about 6 hours) One of the big advantages of the enTourage eDGe™ is that the battery can be replaced if it's ever necessary.

5 Different Colors:


The enTourage eDGe™ comes complete with a Stylus, a Power adapter, a USB cable and a Quick Start Guide

Technical Specs:
•Dimensions: 8.25" x 10.75" by 1.0" (closed)
•Weight: approx. 3 lbs.
•Internal Memory: 4 GB (3 GB for user) up to 3000 books
•E-reader File Formats: ePub, PDF
•LCD Touchscreen Display Size: 1024 x 600 (10.1")
•E-paper Display Size: 9.7" e-Ink®(1200 x 825), 8 shades of gray
•E-paper Input: Wacom® Penabled®
•Operating System: Linux with Google® Android®
•Screen Rotation: 90 and 180 degrees
•Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth capability
•Battery Life: 16+ hours utilizing the e-reader screen / up to 6 hours running the LCD screen
•Battery Type: Lithium-ion polymer
•External Memory: SD card slot, 2 USB ports
•Audio and Microphone Jack: 3.5 mm each. Includes internal microphone and speakers.
•Audio playback: MP3, WAV, 3GPP, MP4, AAC, OGG, M4A
•Video playback: 3GP, MP4, Adobe Flash Lite (H.264)
•Input: Stylus input on e-paper and touchscreen. Virtual keyboard. USB keyboard (optional)


Check out what Wired magazine's Gadget Lab has to say about it here.


Pre-order yours now here.
all images and information courtesy of enTourage eDGe

The Pomegranate Phone: Dialing Up Interest In Nova Scotia

Introducing the Pomegranate Phone: A mobile phone, mp3 player, gps system, internet, global voice translator, camera, video player, movie projector, coffee brewer, razor and harmonica in one!


Okay, before you get too excited and start scouring the net for release dates, tech specs and availability, it's not an actual product but an ad campaign ruse launched on October 1st, 2007.

A well-produced false product introduction complete with hilarious video vignettes by Journeyman Films, tech specs, accessories and more, this micro site is a wily subterfuge to introduce you to Nova Scotia's Come To Life tourism campaign, positioning the province as the venue that has a lot to offer.





The micro site is impressively designed and filled with all the demos and charts you'd expect from an actual tech product introduction. Even the voice over and music (by Windom Earle) are great.



However, marketing critics are calling the campaign a bust. (Update: this post has consistently been the most widely read and searched for post on my blog since this campaign broke and still is one full year later - editor)

Jeff White of Brightwhite says:

"Viral marketing is great, but the fact that Nova Scotia taxpayers have spent $300,000 to foot the bill for this campaign is a shame. Next to no one will have any idea that this even is a site about Nova Scotia. And those that do find this more or less hidden link feel cheated.

So, even though lots of people will forward the site to their friends, very few will get to the true nature of what it's trying to say and that makes this a very expensive experiment. You only need to read what people are saying on Twitter to see that the general opinion is that this campaign bombs."

It's even been deemed the Pombomb by tweeters.

Nevertheless, I applaud Novia Scotia for trying something bold and new and without all the actual media placement info, et cetera, I, personally, will refrain from hypothesizing about why it may or may not have succeeded. Besides, it's too soon to tell and I have yet to locate actual stats as far as visitors, etc.

But I will show you some screen grabs, because whether or not the site is driving interest in Nova Scotia, it deserves kudos for imaginative thinking, clever copy, nice design and wonderful videos.

As a coffee maker:




As a razor or shaver:



As a movie projector:

As a voice translator:

As a harmonica:


They even included faux 'goodies' such as a a lucite holder, speaker system and t-shirts:




If you don't respect it as an attempt to be a 'viral' campaign (which, by the way, is not something you can set out to do, but instead a campaign may become 'viral' if one is lucky), at least take a look at it for entertainment.

credits:The campaign was produced by Bristol Group, Egg Films/Hatch, and Breathe Media.

* Art Director: Dan Couto
* Copy writer/creative director: Albert Ianni
* Production Manager: Collette Snow
* Designers: Andrew Grantham, Michael Gatto
* Internal Programmer: Melissa Castle
* External programmers/designers: Breathe Media
* Production/Post: Egg Films/Hatch Post
* Actors/Models: Christopher Killam, Lita Lewellen, John Beale, Laura Bleasdale, Andrea Wilson, Pasha, and others

Special thanks to Alex Asher Sears!

The Pomegrante Phone

If you are a fan of clever 'misdirects', you'll love the TATTOO YOUR HEART site for the launch of Vikunja. See that here.